An example of a conventional position notifying device is an e-mail apparatus for vehicles disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-86195. Based on a current position of a target object (which is an vehicle in the aforementioned publication) as estimated by a car navigation apparatus, thee-mail apparatus for vehicles creates an e-mail containing a message for transmission, and transmits the created e-mail to a first mail server on the Internet via a communication section.
The first mail server temporarily stores the e-mail which has been transmitted from the e-mail apparatus for vehicles, and thereafter transmits the e-mail to a second mail server which is specified by an address described in the e-mail. The e-mail having been stored in the second mail server is to be acquired by a data terminal device at a receiver's end, which has an e-mail receiving function.
However, the aforementioned e-mail apparatus for vehicles creates and transmits an e-mail containing a message for transmission at every previously-set time interval or each time the vehicle has traveled a previously-set distance. Therefore, there is a problem in that the receiver cannot know the current position of the automobile when wanting to know the automobile's position.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a position notifying device with which a receiver can easily know a current position of a remote target object.